The overweight and obese would be better off ignoring calories, and all other inane "experts" and as you said, focusing on eating more whole foods and moving just to feel better in general, but being overweight does not automatically make them unhealthy or unworthy (I know you didn't say that, but that's how society treats them, and that's why most people are here, isn't it?). You're right, in that most people seem to use "lifestyle change" as code for "diet." If it was really just a lifestyle change, they wouldn't care so much about hitting a goal or slashing calories or fitting into a certain size. I don't buy it.

Yeah, throw the tomatoes at me, but I feel like I have finally come out of a mental fog. Maybe it's because I eat more now, and my brain isn't starving.

I don't think it needs to come in the form of a diet or even within the framework of "I can't have this" or "XYZ is forbidden" - but most people need to retrain their palates and their stomachs to adapt to a normal satisfying amount of nutritious food, which is a lifestyle change. Movement is a rough one in winter - being outdoors sucks and is even dangerous, and gyms and dance studios and other places you go to move are full of dieters and people who try to sell the "fitspo which is really the new thinspo" idea. I see it everywhere now - people are like "LEANER, LEANER" instead of "THINNER, THINNER" but it is all means to the same end - unnaturally low body fat for females because that's what's desirable in a lot of circles.